Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Extinguish Thou My Eyes

Extinguish Thou my eyes:I still can see Thee,

deprive my ears of sound:I still can hear Thee,

and without feet I still can come to Thee,

and without voice I still can call to Thee.

Sever my arms from me, I still will hold Thee

with all my heart as with a single hand,

arrest my heart, my brain will keep on beating,

and Should Thy fire at last my brain consume,

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Moving Forward

The deep parts of my life pour onward,

as if the river shores were opening out.

It seems that things are more like me now,

That I can see farther into paintings.

I feel closer to what language can't reach.

With my senses, as with birds, I climb

into the windy heaven, out of the oak,

in the ponds broken off from the sky

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there,

look: the last village of words and, higher,

(but how tiny) still one last

farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it?

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground

under your hands. Even here, though,

something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge

an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Lament

Everything is far

and long gone by.

I think that the star

glittering above me

has been dead for a million years.

I think there were tears

in the car I heard pass

and something terrible was said.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Interior Portrait

You don't survive in me

because of memories;

nor are you mine because

of a lovely longing's strength.

What does make you present

is the ardent detour

that a slow tenderness

traces in my blood.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don't even know what songs

would please you. I have given up trying

to recognize you in the surging wave of the next

moment. All the immense

images in me— the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,

by Rainer Maria Rilke

You, you only, exist

You, you only, exist.

We pass away, till at last,

our passing is so immense

that you arise: beautiful moment,

in all your suddenness,

arising in love, or enchanted

in the contraction of work.

To you I belong, however time may

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Eve

Simply she stands at the cathedral’s

great ascent, close to the rose window,

with the apple in the apple-pose,

guiltless-guilty once and for all

of the growing she gave birth to

since form the circle of eternities

loving she went forth, top struggle through

her way throughout the earth like a young year.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Sonnets To Orpheus: IV

O you tender ones, walk now and then

into the breath that blows coldly past,

Upon your cheeks let it tremble and part;

behind you it will tremble together again.

O you blessed ones, you who are whole,

you who seem the beginning of hearts,

bows for the arrows and arrows' targets—

tear-bright, your lips more eternally smile.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Abishag

She lay, and serving-men her lithe arms took,

And bound them round the withering old man,

And on him through the long sweet hours she lay,

And little fearful of his many years.

And many times she turned amidst his beard

Her face, as often as the night-owl screeched,

And all that was the night around them reached

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Elegy X

That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision

I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!

That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail

to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!

That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent

That my humble weeping change into blossoms.

Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering, be remembered

with love. Why did I not kneel more fervently, disconsolate

by Rainer Maria Rilke